Roulette
by Winnie The Pig
Summary: John plays Russian Roulette with himself, because every time he pulls the trigger, he feels alive. Sherlock knows.


_Spinoff of my earlier story, also titled Roulette. Which was many kinds of terrible, so I took it down rewrote it. This happened. It's getting really cliché, isn't it?_

_Might contain triggers (lol pun) for suicide things... and also drugs_

_Thanks for reading!_

_. . ._

**Title:** Roulette

**Summary:** John plays Russian Roulette with himself, because just for one second after he pulls the trigger, he feels alive. Sherlock knows.

. . .

_"John?" was the horrified question. John panicked, and without looking behind him, he pulled the trigger._

. . .

John never planned the events (or perhaps 'episodes' would be a more appropriate term). They just happened. So once in a while, seemingly out of the blue, John took his revolver and pushed the barrel to his temple (occasionally into his mouth if he was feeling especially dramatic). Sherlock didn't know. Of course he didn't know. John could imagine exactly what he would have said.

"Don't do _guns_, John. Guns are predictable."

He forgot exactly when the episodes started, but it was definitely sometime between Afghanistan and Sherlock. This ballpark figure allowed around a ten week window period where he might've thought to himself, 'Hey, I kind of want to kill myself, but not _completely_.' Some people called it 'dating death without the actual commitment.' John found that one particularly hilarious.

When Sherlock mentioned using the revolver for a case two months after they had moved in together, John remembered the episodes he once had and thought, maybe he didn't need it after all. Just to be safe, however, he kept his gun locked in his isolated drawer of knick-knacks, always with one bullet sitting patiently in the cylinder.

John never thought about it as a problem. It wasn't _technically_ suicide, because he left about an eighty-three percent chance of survival. The full weight of his own flawed logic came back to bite him in the arse after he found Sherlock secret cocaine stash.

"It'll ruin you." Yup.

"You're better than this." Uh huh.

"_You're killing yourself_!" Of course.

Oh he was such a hypocrite.

. . .

John found help soon after Sherlock died. Online. The first question he apparently had to ask himself in order to deal with those 'suicidal thoughts', was _why _he did what he did. Since he had absolutely no idea, he tried his routine to see just how it felt. Then he tried it again. And again. And again.

Curiously, the closest description of his experiences was found on the _Narcotics Anonymous_ homepage, where the only advice given was to 'seek help and/or remove yourself from the source of the addiction'. John scoffed at that. For one, he wasn't an addict (what kind of psycho got addicted to pretend-shooting themselves anyway), and what would happen if he was attacked? Or if some violent burglar broke into the house? He needed it for self defence. So the revolver resided on the dressing table within reach and still with one bullet in the cylinder. It got him through three years without Sherlock.

. . .

Mycroft came to Sherlock one day with his extra-serious-face on.

"Watson's doing Roulette now."

Sherlock was updating his web of conspiracy, and replied, "Oh? Good luck to him then."

"Very clever," Mycroft rolled his eyes, "_Russian _Roulette, Sherlock."

Sherlock wasn't remotely fazed.

"I take it you've taken care of the problem?"

Sherlock sneered, "I took care of that last year. Please leave, Mycroft."

Sherlock knew of John's private pastime. He wasn't stupid. He could count, and the number of bullets John loaded each time then went out for a case was definitely not six. He hadn't allowed himself to lose sleep over the issue; everyone had their own little coping mechanisms after all. His, was drugs. Who was he to say John wasn't allowed his own, albeit rather unconventional one?

However, it would be quite not-good if John _did_ succeed in his attempts, Sherlock reasoned, so one day when John was out doing whatever he did in Tesco, Sherlock rigged the gun. It couldn't shoot without a tension spring.

. . .

When Sherlock turned up one day at the doorstep of 221b after his 'death', John nodded, made himself a pot of tea and didn't even _offer_ any to Sherlock until after he explained himself.

"Okay," John said after Sherlock finished, "fair enough." And life was back to normal. Two weeks later, they had even gone back to engaging in ridiculous banter about the merits and disadvantages of Chinese takeaway. But the revolver still remained proudly on the dressing table; sometimes forgotten, but very much _there_. John couldn't help it. It was part of his weekly routine now; help solve the cases, buy the milk, do the laundry, and then shoot himself in the head. Because the tiny, miniscule, fraction-of-a-second-s after the empty clicks were the best moments of his life.

Meanwhile, Sherlock charted John's moods, made predictions on the coming of the episodes, and stayed out of John's way during those times. All was well.

. . .

Except that one time Sherlock got high. It wasn't a normal-person high, so it wasn't that crazy. He was just a little wobbly on his feet, and had an overwhelming urge to visit John upstairs. He'd completely erased the John Schedule from his mind, which was his mistake, because if he hadn't, he would have known exactly what was to be expected when he opened the door.

John Watson sat at the edge of the bed, facing the window that opened to Baker Street. He also had a revolver pressed against his head.

Sherlock forgot about his gun-tampering, he forgot about 'coping mechanisms', he forgot that it was supposed to be normal and breathed out one word, "John?"

The man in question started, and before Sherlock could prepare himself, he saw a finger press the trigger.

The little click soon dissolves into the silence. Panic, fear and absolutely fury washes over Sherlock in rapid succession and he marched up to John. John didn't even stop him when he swiped the gun from his hands.

"_What on earth are you doing_?"

His heart almost froze when he saw John's face, eyes closed in sheer, horrible bliss. Then John blinks up at Sherlock with obvious traces of a genuine happiness. One did not need to have the deductive abilities of The Great Sherlock Holmes on crack to know that the only thing in John's head at that particular moment in time was, ' I'm not dead. Not dead not dead not dead not dead not dead...'

For once, Sherlock was at a loss for words, but he managed to squeeze out a strained, "Don't. Anymore— I... " before he shut himself up.

Neither of them spoke for a while, but John got the gist of it, and he stared straight into Sherlock's dilated pupils.

"Would you stop using?" he asked without preamble.

Sherlock didn't answer.

John's expression told Sherlock that he hadn't been expecting anything else, and he said softly, "I can't either."

. . .

Sherlock never told John that he screwed with John's gun. John never told Sherlock he'd been gradually diluting Sherlock's seven percent cocaine solution with medical-grade distilled water.

They're both happy. And very much alive.

. . .

_I don't think that was what I was going for when I started, but I'm okay with it._

_I probably just sound like some idiotic teenager hating the world. I hope not..._

_Gun-anatomy is not my strong suit. Don't know what a tension spring does, but it's part of a gun, so..._

_I hoped you liked it! Thank you so much for finishing it and bearing with my brain-vomit._


End file.
